Wikiversity Beta is a global platform aiming at coordinating Wikiversity projects in several languages. In order to benefit from the input of its many members (not only English-writers), Beta has to set up an efficient multilingual discussion system.

Contents

Existing system

Multilingualism is often a one-way concept: first there is a source page in English language, then people translate it to make it understandable to non-English-readers. The main drawback of this system is non-English-writers cannot take part in discussion, all they can do is passively read what is translated.

As the issues discussed on Beta concern Wikiversities in all languages, it is necessary that participants from all projects can give their opinions.

Proposed system

Discussion about this proposal is welcome on the talk page.

1 - Participants starting a new discussion write a short summary of what it is about and add a link on the coordination mother page.

2 - Translators translate the summary to other languages, and add the links on the coordination page.

3 - On each language talk page, people discuss, give opinions and ask questions. They write a short paragraph summing this up and write it on their language subpage with a new ID number. On the coordination mother page, they add the ID number and the link to their summary.

4 - Translators regularly check the coordination page and reflect the new summary on their page (with the same ID). They add links from the mother page.

5 - Discussion goes on. Each new summary is given a new unique ID number which identifies it on the coordination page and on all language subpages.

Guidelines to make this system work

The shorter, the better. Conciseness is the key to efficient multilingual discussions. Long paragraphs will probably not be translated, nor will they be reflected on other language pages. That means the possible ideas / criticisms / questions will not get any attention.

Paragraph numbering: Paragraphs should be numbered to be easily identified: first summary is #1, new summaries follow. This means participants have to check the other pages before adding a paragraph on their page to make sure their page is up-to-date and to avoid number conflicts.

Benefits of this system

Everybody can join and take part in the discussion.

Participants are required to be brief and to focus on key topics.

Consensus is likely to occur between all participants, whatever their language is.